What Writers Advise on the Teaching of Creative Writing

Abstract

entry made by Henry James, one of America's great practitioners of the art of fiction, on January 22, 1879. And though it would seem to have little bearing on the matter of evoking imaginative composition from the students of a high school English class, strangely enough, if only by indirection, it is a view shared in principle by some of our contemporary writers on the matter of stimulating writing creatively. Let me temporize at once by explaining that not all the writers whose advice I sought recently about high school writing agreed that, from the classroom point of view, the struggle naught availeth. But even those with concrete suggestions could at best see the teacher as catalyst, certain suggested subject matter as provocative only, and the results far from guaranteed. I must confess that I asked certain of our country's distinguished (and hardworking; all real writers are hard-working: I know-I married one) authors a loaded question. I asked them how they would teach creative writing to a high school English class. (And they responded as any experienced and/or insightful person would: the teaching can't be done.) The question was hopeful of a reaction from them that (if not prescriptive, and more than one reaction was) would be suggestive and even helpful to the classroom teacher.